Martin Simpson and Dom Flemons at Cecil Sharp House, NW1

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Traditionalists would have gasped; the ghost of Cecil Sharp, patron saint of folk-song collectors, might even have been tempted to hurl down a thunderbolt. Was that an electric kettle that Dom Flemons, founder member of that inspirational African-American string band, The Carolina Chocolate Drops — used for a round of jug-blowing? Indeed it was.

The plastic interloper didn’t make the most authentic of noises. But it was hard to find fault with the rest of this captivating transatlantic collaboration, the fruit of a few days’ rummaging in the library of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, not to mention a